As evident in my post about expectations, in approaching
Italia I'm operating on some clichés. I tend to over-romanticize, I imagine. When
I think about tropes of Italian culture, especially in travel-oriented
representations of Italy, I think of passionate and tumultuous love affairs and
machismo. Italian is a Romance language, and Italian men and women are ardent
whether in love or argument. People also yell a lot about how to cook things
and how to grow the perfect wine grape. Italy is a place to be loved right,
too. Older English or American women can also go there to eat pasta, gain a few
pounds, and get their groove back with a muscular Italian tutor with a badass Vespa
who gives good gelato. Also, Italian men are lusty and gave the world the term “bravado.”
My great aunt actually travelled to Italy with a school group (from the private
women’s Beaver College) when she was my age, and had her bottom pinched in an
elevator—“Just stay quiet,” she advises. On the street, these Italian ne’er-do-wells
are vocal in their appreciation of the other sex, without boundary or respect,
but they love hair gel and their mamas. This advertisement for gelato
capitalizes on these stereotypes:
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